Boomers: The Next 20 years

Many thanks to Martijn de Haas for telling me about this report from the MetLife Mature Market Institute. Don’t be put off by the rather fancy title: “Ecologies of Risks.” This document contains some interesting and original ideas.

It starts with a depressing catalogue of all the risks that confront the Boomer generation. It is long and doesn’t even truly reflect the dire consequences of the recession. Nothing totally new in this section but it is a useful list.

Where it starts to get interesting is when it turns the corner from threats to opportunities.

For instance, the report believes that: “Boomers believe that their single most important future asset is themselves” and from this it deduces the opportunity is translating self-investment strategies into financial products and services such as health and long-term care insurance, reverse mortgages, and education loans for re-careering and lifetime income products.

One of the sites it uses to illustrate opportunity is Nifty after Fifty.

The report concludes that Boomers are grouping together, with like minded souls, to provide protection against the plethora of life's risks. The site it uses to illustrate this is the Lending Club

Two sites really caught my attention and that have the potential to tap a deep vein of fear, vulnerability and the need for support and knowledge.

Patients Like me as the name suggest is a place to find out from others suffering from the same conditions. Daily Strength has a wider remit beyond health to all sorts of issues.

All in all, it is definitely worth reading this Metlife report. Dick Stroud